


They're Very Distinctive Scissors

by MsWilloughby



Category: Leverage
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Hair Washing, Haircuts, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 19:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6252775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MsWilloughby/pseuds/MsWilloughby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Eliot and Parker bond over hair care. Basically pure fluff. Takes place after Season 5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They're Very Distinctive Scissors

The first time Eliot sees Parker cutting her hair, a few months after he officially moves in with them, he gets the same look on his face that he got the first time Hardison asked for his steak well-done. Sort of annoyed and sort of like he wants to ask "Why?" but he knows he won't like the answer. (It's a look she's familiar with, though she hasn't seen it on steak dinner nights for a while. Eliot's long since given up trying to change Hardison's mind about how a steak should be cooked. He tried really hard at first, though.)

"What are you _doing_?" Eliot asks.

Parker rolls her eyes at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. "Cutting my hair, silly." Isn't it obvious? She's standing in front of the mirror with a pair of scissors in one hand and one side of her grown-out bangs in the other (she's thinking about shortening them again). What else would she be doing?

Eliot catches her eye in the mirror. "No, I mean … what are you doing with _those_?" He points at the perfectly unremarkable orange-handled scissors in her hand.

Parker blinks at him. "What's wrong with these?"

"You know there are scissors designed for cutting hair, right?"

Oh. This is probably like that time she grabbed a butter knife to turn over the pancakes and somehow, two minutes later, Eliot had nine different spatulas lined up on the counter and was demonstrating the uses for all of them. He's fussy about the right tool for the job, and she gets that, even though she still doesn't care which spatula is which. It's not like she'd choose to pick a lock with a bent paper clip, after all. (She _could_ , and she has, but why would she when there are lock picks for every kind of lock out there, and -- oh. That's why Eliot has that pained look on his face.)

He's still giving her that look, and she shrugs. "I've always cut my hair with these." It's true; Parker's been cutting her own hair since she was seven and her foster mother learned the hard way how much Parker hated hair salons. She still hates hair salons. And it's not like cutting her hair is hard. She doesn't even have to remember to do it very often; that's the advantage of having long hair.

Eliot frowns, opens his mouth, then shuts it and disappears for a minute. Parker hears him opening the hall closet where he's got a shelf of hair products and dryers. He reappears holding a shiny, slender pair of scissors.

"Here," he says, holding them out with the handles toward her. "These'll make it faster. They're sharper than regular scissors. Won't damage your ends."

Parker puts the kitchen scissors down and accepts Eliot's offering. She turns back to the mirror, pulls one of the shorter bits of hair forward, and cuts an experimental snip off the bottom. He's right; the fancy scissors go through her hair with a lot less resistance than the regular ones, and they make a satisfying _snick!_ noise when they close.

"Thanks," she says, smiling at his reflection in the mirror.

"Let me know next time and I can trim it for you," he says, taking the regular scissors with him. "If you like."

It's been decades since she'd let anyone else cut her hair, but Eliot's probably good at it, the way he's good at most things. She's watched him take care of his own hair, the painstaking way he draws the strands out with a brush as he runs the dryer over it. (It's always soft under her hands afterwards.) And it's Eliot, after all. She trusts him with all of their lives; why not with this?

 

The next time it occurs to her that her hair needs trimming, Parker takes him up on his offer.

Eliot insists on shampooing her hair first ("It's easier to cut when it's wet, Parker"), and none of the chairs in the apartment are the right height for the bathroom sink, so Parker does a partial backbend to dunk her head in the sink and then drops into the too-tall desk chair as Eliot works the shampoo into her hair. He uses the same even pressure all over her scalp, like a massage for her head. He doesn't really talk while he's washing her hair, or after they've rolled the chair out into the living room and he's draping a towel over her shoulders. She's always liked the way she and Eliot can be quiet together. She zones out a little, deliberately stops rearranging the puzzle pieces of her six-month plan for their next series of jobs, visualizes herself setting it all down so she can concentrate on the feeling of Eliot's hands on her scalp, the sound of the fancy hair-cutting scissors going _snick snick snick_.

Hardison comes into the living room just as Eliot's handing her a mirror, and raises his eyebrows at them. "You moonlighting as a stylist now?" he asks.

Eliot turns, grinning. "Want me to do yours next? I got clippers."

"Nah, man, the guys at the barbershop would miss me. Appreciate it, though." He catches her eye and smiles at both of them. "Hey, I happened to stop by Voodoo Doughnut on my way home. There may be some donuts on the kitchen counter. If you move fast."

"Cool!" Parker is jumping up and shaking the towel from her shoulders even as Eliot growls "Dammit, Parker, at least let me blow-dry it!"

 

After that it becomes their thing, something that's just hers and Eliot's. It's like how Hardison and Eliot have their secret handshake and their Wii fishing afternoons, or how she and Hardison have their dates where they trade off between her picking new places to bungee jump and him introducing her to Doctor Who. Once or twice she offers to return the favor, but Eliot insists on cutting his own hair himself. Sometimes, though, she'll run her hands through his hair while they're all sitting on the couch watching a movie, or lying in bed drifting off to sleep, and she'll try to make her hands say all the things Eliot's hands say with the shampoo and the scissors: _be still_ , and _you're here now_ , and _home_ , and _safe_. If Eliot hadn't already taught her how to like stuff, Parker thinks he could probably teach her the same thing over again, only with hair instead of food.

They never get around to installing a special sink for their hair-cutting nights. But eventually, Eliot buys them a barber's chair.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired in part by gyzym's post about Eliot and his hair care products: http://gyzym.tumblr.com/post/119316518726/good-morning-have-we-talked-about-what-eliot 
> 
> Thanks so much to jasbo for egging me on to post this, and for suggesting the title!
> 
> You can find my (very, very sporadically updated) Tumblr at http://mswilloughby.tumblr.com/.


End file.
